1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic still camera with a printer and a monitor incorporated therein. The printer makes a hard copy of an electronic image based on an electronic image signal that is picked up through an imaging device of the electronic still camera or read out from a memory, whereas the monitor displays the image based on the electronic image signal, prior to printing the image. The present invention relates also to a printer with a monitor incorporated therein, for displaying an image based on an electronic image signal fed in the printer, prior to printing the image based on the electronic image signal.
2. Background Arts
Electronic still cameras have recently been widely used that form an optical image of a subject on an image sensor through a camera lens, convert the optical image into an electronic image signal, and write it in a digital form on a memory. Some of the electronic still cameras are provided with an electronic viewfinder that displays moving images of the subject in the photographic field of the camera lens based on the electronic image signals from the image sensor. As the electronic viewfinder, an LCD panel has widely been used.
It is also known in the art to incorporate a printer into the electronic still camera, for making a hard copy of the photographed image instantly on the basis of the image data. An example of electronic still camera with a printer section is one described in WO99/21055, wherein the printer section makes a hard copy of an image by exposing an instant film sheet through a linear optical printing head that is driven in accordance with image data of the image read out from a memory. The instant film sheet is processed by its own processing fluid that is automatically spread on the instant film sheet while the instant film sheet is squeezing out of the camera through a pair of film processing rollers, in the same way as in a conventional instant camera.
Although the electronic still camera of this prior art makes it possible to get a hard copy of the photographed image with ease without bothering portability of the camera, since the electronic viewfinder doubles as a monitor for displaying a photographed still image, the displayed still image does not always adequately simulate the finished print. Especially where the electronic viewfinder is so small that it displays the image at a reduced magnification compared to the printed image, it is difficult to imagine the finished condition from the displayed image, so the finished print can be sometimes disappointing.